About
James King Biography
James King is a southern born filmmaker based in Nashville, TN, with over 24 years experience in the entertainment industry. He is an award winning music video and commercial cinematographer with awards including:
The Silver Telly winning Verizon campaign, Emmy winning Tennessee Lottery “Cash Cow” Commercial, the AAF Award Winning “Salute” spot, which also won 6 top Addy’s with two additional NGA Creative Choice Awards, and the East Tennessee Children’s Hospital “Bicycle Jump” that won seven Addy awards including Best of Show.
Just as successful on the music video front, James has taken home the USA Weekend Breakthrough Video of the Year for Scotty McCreery’s “The Trouble With Girls”, and Carrie Underwood’s CMT Video of the Year “Till I See You Again”, as well as CMA Music Video of the Year Maddie and Tae’s “Girl In a Country Song” followed by Kelsi Ballarennis CMA Best Video of the Year Nomination for “Peter Pan”, as well as multiple yearly nominations. In 2021, James King’s work was nominated 7 times in various categories including 2021 CMT Music Video Award for Ryan Hurd and Maren Morris “Chasing After You”. In 2022 James’ cinematography helped once again take home the CMT Male Video of the Year award with Cody Johnson’s “Til You Cant“.
Since 2017, between feature productions, James has been an integral part of the now-famous MasterClass productions, working with Hans Zimmer, Gordon Ramsey, Wolfgang Puck, Frank Ghery, Tony Hawk, among a host of other guests.
James started his feature film career by shooting the multi award winning 2005 coming of age zombie film, “Make-Out with Violence”, which debuted at South by Southwest Film Festival.
In 2016 James King premiered the feature film Soul, a gritty dark revenge piece, at the Nashville Film Festival that he both DP’d and Directed; that film went on to play in multiple festivals around the US and the world, most notably the Chicago Blow-Up Arthouse Film Festival where it was in the final selection.
In 2016 he DP’d “Beautifully Broken” a film about a Rwandan refugee who finds hope and a place to safely raise his family in America and in return helps mend an American family’s tattered life. The film was shot in both New Orleans and South Africa.
In 2017 after shooting the Florida Georgia Line “May We All” Music Video that featured dynamic dirt tack racing footage, James’ talents were recognized and he was asked to join the John Travolta helmed film Trading Paint as 2nd Unit DP.
Later that same year James was asked to join the critically acclaimed Neil Armstrong biopic “First Man” starring Ryan Gosling for Universal Studios as the Stunt Unit Cinematographer, collaborating with the Academy Award winning Linus Sanhedrin, and stunt coordinator James Churchmann.
In 2018 he lensed the international action thriller “LA Rush” starring Elijah Wood, with director Chen Ping, as the Director of Photography.
In the summer of 2019 James went on to work as 2nd Unit Director of Photographer for the Robert Deniro and Tommy Lee Jones comedy vehicle “The Comeback Trail”, Directed by George Gallo. His sequences are some of the most entertaining in the film and can be seen featured in the trailer, covering everything from horse back riding, an Indian attack, rope bridge break, and trailer explosion.
After wrapping on Comeback Trail, James collaborated with long time collaborator Director Roman White on “A Week Away” the smash hit Netflix Musical Feature Film about a troubled teen that’s forced to go to summer camp where he finds friends and a way to deal with his personal demons. A Week Away was recently awarded Inspirational Film of the Year at the 52nd GMA Dove Awards.
Not quite out of the woods, James joined the Skit Guys Crew in the summer of 2020 as the Director of Photography for the film “Family Camp”, a a family friendly take on Summer Camp in the vein of The Great Outdoors.
In 2021 James King worked with long time collaborator Director TK McKamy on the southern romantic musical “Something Here” that is presently in post production .
In 2022 James King put his background in stunt photography to use with the adventure film The Ballad of Davey Crockett starring Calm Meaney and William Mosely.